United States v. Darnell Hayes

RYMER, Circuit Judge:

On this appeal we are asked to slide the protections of the Sixth Amendment’s right to counsel back to a time that predates the initiation of formal criminal proceedings by nearly a year.

Darnell Hayes was one of several targets of an investigation into a complicated, multi-party scheme to sell grades for classes that foreign students did not attend, perform course work for, or take exams in. The government asked for (and got) court approval to take material witness depositions of several foreign students before they left for home. Meanwhile, the government wired a…